The fascinating story behind the hugely successful payment technology Swish was told us by CEO Ms. Anna-Lena Wretman on Tuesday February 27, when she gave a speech at Rotary Stockholm City First Breakfast (text in Swedish follows further below).

Groundbreaking Technology

Ms. Anna-Lena Wretman is heading the company Getswish, which 2012 launched a groundbreaking new way of transferring money from person to person, quick and easy. All you need is two apps (Swish and BankID) in your mobile, and the recipients telephone number. The transfer is done without delay, from your bank to the recipients bank. This sounds obvious today, when most of the Swedish people use Swish, but internationally it’s quite unique.

The Swish project originated from The Swedish Central Bank (Riksbanken), as a way of reducing the use of cash in the Swedish society, a development that is now accelerating in many parts of the world but in different ways. Today, Getswish is owned by six of the largest banks in Sweden, with even more banks offering the Swish services. The banks pays to Getswish for the transactions, but private persons don’t have to pay for the service. How can that be? Well, the answer is probably that if a bank would charge, the customers would simply go to another bank…

Focused on Development

Swish was created and is maintained by the company Getswish, which is all about development. The launch 2012 was for personal use, but then came versions for companies, organisations and donations (2014), e-shopping (2016) and QR-codes (2017). Getswish is now looking into the possibilities to cooperate abroad to enable Nordic transfers.

Swedish Digital Top Products

Swish, combined with BankID for identification (see my post BankID CEO at Rotary), are two Swedish unique products that makes our digital life a lot easier. The widespread use of these products is a huge success. My personal belief is that here we have very valuable know-how to export!